UNDERGRADS

UNDERGRADS; The Longtime Student

By Karen W. Arenson

Published: April 13, 2003

Old Westbury, N.Y.—
SEAN BOYLE has started college three times. The first time was right out of high school, nearly a decade ago, when he enrolled at Eugene Lang College in New York City. He had been a solid student in high school but dropped out of college just weeks into his first semester to pursue acting. The second time was about a year later, after giving up on the theater. This time, he worked as a temp and attended Nassau Community College on Long Island. That lasted a semester, until the company he was working for offered him a full-time job. He bolted again.

The third time, after changing jobs, he decided he really did need a college degree. Now a payroll administrator at a property management company, he leaves work at 5:15 two afternoons a week, wolfs down a sandwich in his car and dashes for a 6:10 class at the State University of New York at Old Westbury. He is 27 and this time intends to graduate.

''For quite a while, college didn't seem important to me,'' says Mr. Boyle, sitting in Old Westbury's cafeteria in a white button-down shirt, dark suit and tie, surrounded by younger students in sweat pants and jeans. ''I saw it as vocational training and I had a job and my career was advancing. Then I realized what a liability not having a degree was. Also, I realized that I had internalized feelings of inferiority. These days, most people have college degrees.''

More people may have degrees, but like Mr. Boyle, many take circuitous routes -- and many years -- to get them. To the consternation of educators, politicians and tuition-paying parents, a student's path through college -- once a quick, smooth ride on an open freeway -- is now more like stop-and-go rush-hour traffic on the Long Island Expressway.

Once the norm, a four-year bachelor's degree is no longer typical. Students now spend on average five to six years steeped in Socrates and child psychology courses before accumulating enough credits for a diploma. Of the students who entered college in 1995 planning to earn a bachelor's degree, only 37 percent succeeded within four years (33 percent from the institution they enrolled in as freshmen), and 63 percent within six years (55 percent from the first institution), according to a study issued in December by the United States Department of Education.

The prolonged student tenure has prompted both outrage and concern. Some government officials see a waste of taxpayer money when slowpoke students attend state-supported universities and receive federal and state aid. Others see the graduation rates as a failure of colleges to do their job properly, or blame students for being undisciplined and taking up slots better occupied by fresh-faced, motivated freshmen.

''The longer people are enrolled, the more it costs, and if students have to borrow, it drives up their debt load,'' says Sally L. Stroup, head of the office of postsecondary education at the Department of Education, which has been soliciting recommendations on what role the federal government can play in spurring students to graduate sooner.

Faced with budget cuts and swelling classrooms, state governments as well as colleges from Minnesota to Texas have been testing various ideas to hasten graduation. In New York, Gov. George E. Pataki has called for withholding a third of a student's aid until graduation. At the University of Florida at Gainesville, a tracking system tells what courses a student needs to complete a major and flags those who are falling behind. A growing number of universities are also guaranteeing that required courses will be available so students can graduate on time. In the fall, Pace University in New York begins the ''Pace Promise'' program, pledging to add sections or open closed courses for eligible students who are shut out. Similarly, SUNY at Fredonia will pay the tuition of students in its ''Fredonia in Four'' program if they can't get needed courses.

THE strongest predictor that a student will graduate is academic preparation, especially the level of math completed in high school, according to Clifford Adelman, a senior research analyst at the Department of Education. ''Finishing a course beyond the level of algebra II -- for example, trigonometry or precalculus -- more than doubles the odds that a student who enters postsecondary education will complete a bachelor's degree,'' he wrote in a 1999 report on college-completion patterns.

Selective universities like Yale and Harvard have little problem getting their freshmen out in four years (88 and 84 percent, respectively). They admit academically prepared students who have the best graduation prospects, and most students attend full time, live on campus and work limited hours -- all factors that raise the likelihood of completing college.

But for colleges like SUNY at Old Westbury, which is filled with students who do not meet this profile, ensuring that students graduate -- and graduate more quickly -- is a challenge. Like marathon runners who reach the finish line hours after the winners have raced through and the cheering crowds have gone home, many students limp on for years.